ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 341 
follows: Clay reddened by fire, 6 inches in thickness; below the clay, bones in 
order but calcined and crushed, having a thickness of 2.5 inches; below the 
bones, carbonized remains of matting, ete., 1.25 inch thick. 
Below burials not affected by fire this carbonized layer was not present, 
some of these burials lying upon a thin, dark line visible through the mound 
and which probably marked a period of occupancy. This layer showed the 
level at which the burnt burials lay and was smooth like a floor. The ground 
beneath the unburnt burials, however, was comparatively soft, while under those 
which lay below the reddened clay the soil was hardened though not discolored 
by heat. : 
We shall now discuss the method adopted by the aborigines for the сгета- 
tion which probably took place at one time. The reddened clay was made up 
of masses of different sizes, some bearing imprints of reeds, grass, etc., and 
seemed to have formed part of a wattle-and-daub building or buildings, the 
burning of which in connection with aboriginal burials has been described in 
the ease of an Arkansas mound,! and of the kind found by us at the base of the 
large mound on Little Island, South Carolina? though this had not been de- 
stroyed by fire. 
It seems likely, then, that a building or buildings, the limits of which, how- 
ever, we were unable to determine by the presence of post-holes, were burnt and 
that some of the clay which fell at the collapse of the structure, while still in- 
tensely hot, was piled over the bones, covering most of the burials completely 
but leaving parts of some uncovered, and the areas shown on the plan containing 
no burials, which showed burnt clay to a lesser extent than the other parts, 
were spaces from which the clay had been gathered to heap over the burials, 
some of it, however, being left. 
In different parts of the mound two trenches were encountered in connection 
with post-holes, but these trenches and holes penetrated the red clay we have 
deseribed and the burials beneath it, and consequently were not of their period. 
They belonged, presumably, to another deposit of clay reddened by fire, which 
was encountered in the mound, about 14 inches above the one we have described. 
No burials lay immediately below this upper deposit, which differed from the 
lower one in that it was not heaped up in places, but extended evenly and had 
mingled with it charcoal, carbonized, coarse matting, thatching, ete. Pre- 
sumably, after the mound had been filled in over the burial layer, another 
strueture was erected which in its turn was destroyed by fire, though perhaps 
not intentionally, and in all events not in connection with burials. 
Our theory as to the method pursued by the aborigines in connection with 
the bones showing evidence of the effect of heat is as follows: But little charcoal 
was present in or on the red clay above the burials, none being found over con- 
! 12th An. Rep. Bur. Am. Ethn., p. 206 et seq. 
? “Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Coast of South Carolina," Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 
Vol. XI, p. 154. 
